Module 7
The AI SDR
Warm first, four modes, and guardrails that are a selling point.
After this module: You can explain inbound versus outbound, pick the right engine mode for a prospect, and turn the deliverability guardrails into a reason to buy.
Inbound, company reveals, outbound
Three different kinds of person end up in outreach, and they deserve different treatment. Confusing them is how outbound gets creepy.
| Source | What it is | How warm |
|---|---|---|
| Inbound | A person who identified themselves on the site | Warm — they made contact |
| Company reveals | A recognised company visited; we find likely decision makers | Warm account, cold contact |
| Outbound campaigns | Cold targeted audiences built from the company database | Cold |
The middle row is the interesting one and the most commercially distinctive. The account is warm — someone there was on the pricing page — but the person you contact never was. That is why the messaging must never reference the visit.
Check yourself
Four modes and a two-week cadence
How much autonomy the engine gets is a per-customer decision, and there are four settings.
- 1Off — nothing is sent.
- 2Drafts only — it writes, nothing leaves. Good for a nervous buyer evaluating message quality.
- 3Assisted — it drafts and queues; a human approves each one. Where most customers should start.
- 4Autonomous — it sends within caps, and still holds anything risky as a draft.
A cadence is around six touches over two weeks, alternating channels and rotating the angle so a follow-up never repeats the previous pitch. Any real reply, booked meeting or connected call stops the sequence immediately — nobody keeps getting emails after they answer.
Check yourself
Why the restrictions are the pitch
A buyer who has been burned by an outbound tool will ask, in some form, "what stops this wrecking my domain?" Have the answer ready, because it is genuinely good.
- Daily caps per channel, enforced across every campaign — not per campaign, which is how tools accidentally send hundreds of emails a day from one domain.
- Warmup: a new sending domain ramps up gradually over roughly ten days rather than starting at full volume.
- Bounce and complaint suppression: bad addresses are automatically excluded, and a domain drifting into the danger band holds sends as drafts.
- Never auto-send to a generic inbox — info@ and contact@ are held for a human even on Autonomous.
- Unverified addresses are held as drafts rather than gambled on.
- Send windows: business hours in the recipient’s local time, not the middle of their night.
Compliance is built in rather than bolted on: every outreach email carries sender identity and one-click unsubscribe, unsubscribes are honoured automatically, and LinkedIn automation is assisted-manual by default — it prepares the message and you send it, because LinkedIn bans accounts on automation volume and an account ban is not recoverable.
Check yourself
Worth remembering
- Three sources: inbound identified people, company reveals (warm account, cold contact), and cold outbound campaigns.
- Four modes — Off, Drafts only, Assisted, Autonomous. Most customers should start on Assisted.
- Cadences run across email and LinkedIn over about two weeks, and any real reply stops the sequence.
- The guardrails are the pitch: daily caps, warmup, bounce suppression, never auto-sending to a generic inbox.
- Compliance is built in — unsubscribe, sender identity, and LinkedIn automation is assisted-manual by default.
Words that came up
- Cadence
- The planned sequence of touches — which channel, on which day, with which angle.
- Deliverability
- Whether email reaches the inbox rather than spam. Damaged by bounces and complaints, and slow to repair.
- Warmup
- Ramping a new sending domain up gradually instead of blasting from day one, which is what gets domains flagged.
- Generic inbox
- An address like info@ or contact@ that reaches no particular person. We never auto-send to one.
Do this before moving on
Reading about a demo is not the same as having given one.
- 1Open the approve queue and read a draft. Would you send it as written?
- 2Look at a cadence and say out loud why touch four is on day eleven rather than day two.
- 3Find the sending-health card and be able to explain what a bounce rate means to a non-technical buyer.